Should it be tuned down to D should it be a six-string should it be with soapbars? It’s not about Pete it’s about the song. None of that is random in my mind it’s all purposely patterned out to contribute to some texture of the song. I’ll do it on the acoustic guitar, on the electric, the rhythm, up-chunka-chunks, whatever. I’m going to get eight bars, or 16, in a song to play something, and the watermark is “Midnight At The Oasis.” But what happens prior to and post is equally important, because it has to be subservient to the song. I learned a long time ago, when I first started recording with Dwight, that I was going to subjugate what I did to make the songs better.Īlways. I consider myself a musician first, rather than a guitarist. Compositions interest me more than guitaristic exercises.
I know some people would like me to make a country record with a lot of fast picking, but that’s not what I do I’m of the Steve Cropper/James Burton, economical school. Pete Anderson: I was asked to do some instrumental cues for CMT – 45 seconds or a minute each, for shows like “Rockin’ Country,” “Gig Bag,” “The Morning Show.” I played all the instruments, and when I went back and reviewed the cues, there were 10 that I decided to make into songs. Vintage Guitar:You’re working on another solo CD? Having co-produced the compilation A Town South of Bakersfield album and its sequel ( Another Town South of Bakersfield), he showcased another fine crop of unsigned country talent on Little Dog’s A Country West of Nashville and was spotted gigging with new signee Moot Davis, who just might become the next Dwight Yoakam. In 2003, he helmed Yoakam’s Population: Me but didn’t tour with the singer for the first time in many years. He followed with 1997’s Dogs In Heaven and a live CD, and was mixing a new solo CD, tentatively titled Daredevil, at press time. In 1993, he founded Little Dog Records, and released his eclectic solo debut, Working Class (with the ad campaign, “It ain’t country, Homer!”), in ’94. Years – from the Bakersfield shuffle of “Little Ways” (featuring an Anderson baritone solo) to the ethereal “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” (with Pete’s slide recalling Duane Allman).Īnderson became an in-demand producer, working with Michelle Shocked, Rosie Flores, the Meat Puppets, and k.d. The best of the pair’s Reprise output (spanning 15 albums), is compiled on Rhino’s four-CD box, Reprise Please Baby: The Warner Bros.
His arrangements and solos refused to settle into a comfortable rut, preferring to take chances and explore new sounds.
Deftly making sense of this seeming incongruity was Anderson, in the control room and on the Telecaster. The term “neo-traditionalist” was often applied to Yoakam, often in the same reviews that credited him with pushing the envelope of country music. The first two Yoakam albums yielded six Top 10 country hits, and the boys were mainstays on the rock circuit long before the third release, Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room, scored two #1 country singles. Despite prevailing trends and “industry wisdom” – an oxymoron Pete Anderson has disproved several times over – the 20-year association of this guitarist/producer/label-head and country star Dwight Yoakam has been one of the most fruitful in country music history.īased in Los Angeles instead of Nashville, with a guitarist doubling as producer, using their seasoned bar band instead of session musicians, and daring to actually play rootsy country music (even proudly calling it “hillbilly music”) instead of some homogenized substitute, Yoakam and company reached #3 on Billboard‘s country chart in 1986 with a kick-ass remake of Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Man” – which had created a buzz as part of their self-released EP before signing with Warner/Reprise.
0 kommentar(er)
